A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a mercenary, a business owner, a doctor, a bandit... the list goes on. Research new equipment and craft new gear.

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

“Kenshi is currently in alpha state. The game is still in development and is missing many features. There are currently unfinished gameplay features, and the stability will fluctuate as new features are added. Expect crashes and bugs at this stage.But remember the game receives regular ongoing updates and improvements, by purchasing at this early stage you get the game for a reduced price and can watch it gradually grow and improve, provide your feedback to the developer, and above all you are helping to fund the development for a small independent developer. Remember: the price will gradually increase over time as development progresses, so the sooner you purchase, the lower the price.”

July 21

We are still trying to track down the problem with squads/characters vanishing off the map or into the void, often when you load a game. We've added more debug information now, so if you load up your savegame and find that it's missing anyone, either send us the save or just the file called "save.log" that you should find in your save folder. This save.log file only appears if something bad was detected, so if you see it, send it in!

0.74.31

More debug logging information added to track down the teleportation bug

Stability fixes

Slavers shouldn't capture police and soldiers anymore.

Slave shops added to major towns. Still a WIP.

0.74.30

AI fix for engineers, they were picking the furthest instead of the closest target

AI fix for wandering traders

Possible AI fix for move orders getting cancelled

Fixed the police chief bounty hunting dialogue

Some fixes for wall upgrading

Fix for spawning under floor in some buildings

Fixed equip/drop item bug

Fixed the crazy "man standing on my head" ragdoll bug when you save a game while carrying someone

other small fixes

0.74.30 is currently the stable build. 0.74.31 is in the experimental branch.

Reviews

"This level of thoughtfulness and ambition is why I learned to love the PC in the first place and I’ll be damned before I put on my cynical hat before I have good reason."
– Rock Paper Shotgun

Steam Greenlight

About This Game

A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a mercenary, a business owner, a doctor, a bandit... the list goes on. Research new equipment and craft new gear. Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business. Aid or oppose the various factions in the world while striving for the strength and wealth necessary to simply survive in the harsh desert. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors. Carry your wounded squad mates to safety and get them all home alive.

However, Its still Alpha the devs say, and its been that for over 3 to 4 years (talk about slow development!).They have huge issues with their HAVOC software, and HAVOC isnt solving these issues yet.Forum is full of diciples who dont want to hear anything bad on the product, even waiting for over 4 years for a proper functioning beta.

Best to wait untill they prove that they will actually finish the product properly, now its a bug filled annoying game, with great potential, save your money for now (and check in a year if they made real progress).

To counter the negetive reviews. Most large companies don't even attempt to make a game such as this because it takes a lot of money and time to develop. Now remember this isn't a large company with 1000 people that own 10 studios around the world. Time is essential to fix bugs and add new content to an open world sandbox so many things can break. Just sit back and wait for the updates to get released, The wait for this amazing game to be completed is well worth it!I give Lo-Fi Games massive credit for this game,Keep going.

I can't believe how many positive reviews there are for this game. Yes, the game has potential. Yes, the game is in alpha, and therefore can be judged based on the potential, but this is a game that has been in development for an incredibly long amount of time without significant updates.

I even retried the game today to see if there were updates added. Sure, the game is an open world, but there is still not much to do in the game. Dialogues are sparse and uselss at best, Combat is clunky, the UI is horrendous, pathing is bizarre and unexpected. Even building a city and grabbing a squad of your own feels tedious rather than fun. Character models are ugly, and though the devs are going to be coming out with a new GUI soon according to their announcements, it does not appear to be a significant upgrade from the current system. Landscapes and cities look great at times, but not enough to actually immerse you into the game.

The game itself is challenging, but not in a particularly fun way. Yes, everyone is stronger than you, yes, the game makes you work your way up in the game, but by the time you do, you've inevitably lost interest in the game, or it has crashed on you about a dozen times. It's a game that I really want to like as I enjoy open-world, sandbox RPGs, but there is simply nothing to do other than wander around, get pummeled, wait to be rescued or recover, and repeat process.

Avoid this game until it leaves Early Access, if it ever leaves early access. The game does have a strong (almost fanatic) fan-base, and the devs do listen to their fans, but the development is so slow, it makes almost no difference whether they do or not. And most negative reviews, whether warranted or not, will get torn apart by this crazed fan base.

My my... this game is still Early Access and yet it managed to catch me in a way no game ever did. I really get in touch with my characters, and even wrote a notebook on their backstory, characteristics and personality. I think I am a little crazy.

Update 5/25/2015I got sidetracked with lots of review, the preview is gonna wait till i get that performance patch they were saying.

Update 5/17/2015 Experimental UpdateHo boy this is.... this is awesome! The old GUI is gone and for the first time ever it looks neat! holy crap. holy holy crap. You should have seen the character creation menu. It looks so clean! And gosh from the last time i played this the game looks a bit better now. I did freeze up here and there but it is the experimental build after all. Will update once i actually starts killing sand ninja.

*Sigh*. I'll be straight with you, this game once consume me for a while. Therefor when I was chosen to do a review on KENSHI, i was rather taken aback and did everything i could to avoid doing it. But the time has come. And now i ask you the question, do you know what is KENSHI?

Most likely not, it's not a mainstream game nor a very well known indie for that one but those people who had the chance to try it will usually exclaim that it is better than most of the RPG on the maker and yet here i must make my statement regarding this game: It's not for everyone. Certainly not for me after i tried it.

Ok so what is KENSHI? RPG game, with a dash of realism. That is to say it is still in early access and i had tried years ago the alpha build before it went on steam and i have to say improvements have been made after all this years. It's an eastern style RPG set in a apocalyptic world where sands rule the land and law and order are determined by might with roaming bands of brigands out for your blood everywhere you go.

It's a very atmospheric world. You can be beset by cannibals, saved by the Holy Empire Patrol, loot dead bodies and equip yourself and after months of training and war you started killing settlements. The tables have turn.

And that my dear reader is what KENSHI embodies, symbolizes and make you experience. You are a human being, in a world where other people are often times better than you. You will bleed in the middle of the desert before using your last medkit to bandage your arm and hobble slowly back to the city. At the end of the day, life goes on.

Why the bravado? Simply because reviewing this game is subjectively hard. That and because i liked it. On with the review i suppose. Many parts of KENSHI will be miss however simply due to the scope.

Gameplay You can choose to start with several preset such as having a good weapon, having trade goods [the goods are cheap, the bag however is not.] having a good weapon, having good combat skill [recommended for beginner.] or having several dudes in your party at start. Which i do not recommend.

Anyways customize your appearances, choose a name, gender [Race is coming. Not very soon however since the updates are slow but big.] and then *BOOM* You are drop into the magnificent world of KENSHI. With only a very brief tooltip to get you started on your journey.

The game is an open ended RPG meaning you can do pretty much what you want without any objective save for those you set yourself. Therefor people who enjoy reading story instead of making it should probably not find it very enjoyable. Anyways you can do a lot of things in the game but lemme just use the very rarely used bullet point instead of typing it out.

Start your own town.

Become a master of arms.

Become a bounty hunter.

Become an anarchist.

A blacksmith even! with upgrades and blueprints!

Or my personal favourite: Wandering the waste, getting into fights randomly healing people or breaking their bones. Then you become a warlord and do all of the above. Nothing really stopping you to be honest.

And here is where the gameplay gets fun. You see KENSHI utilizes a unique RPG system where instead of skill points you actually perform the action to upgrade your corresponding skill. System like Carrying extra weight to train your strength, running without any loads to increase your running speed. And actually fighting to increase your fighting skills because you truly suck at the beginning where even a small bandit can make you into coma.

Speaking of coma this game HP system should be utilize into more game. For example your limbs have individual health bar and each of them can bleed out individually reducing their effectiveness and preventing you from using two handed weapons and sword for examples. But that is not all! Wound your opponent enough on the head and they will faint, on the leg and they will hobble, on the arm and well.... have fun. Meanwhile you also have a blood meter! Lost too much and get coma and die. Subject to everyone. So everyone has an equal chances of dying with only their martial art skill being the tie breaker.

There is also the element of trading, by buying trading bag which reduces your speed and make you more susceptible to bandits you can buy trading goods and trade stuff from town to town. Then all those training carrying sacks of metal made you stronger so you can then beat up bandits!

The game is hilariously open is what i am saying. That is not even accounting for squad formation, squad order. create-a-town mechanic function and all the other things in this world. It's the tip of the iceberg.

Graphics Compare to years ago the graphics have improve substantially although in 2015 its not really something to write home about. You can even sometimes see graphical glitches from time to time although seeing as this is a rather massively scope game such a thing are understandable.

Sound While atmospheric the ambient sound is best turned off, the game set to windowed mode and you play supplied with your own music. Trust me the lonely landscape takes time to transverse even at top speed so having your tune would supplement it quite well.

Conclusion My review will never do KENSHI justice, it is a game of such openness and it provides you with the mean to experience that everybody will play it differently. For me it is the ever path of the wanderer [And the warlord once I figure out how to actually kill someone with this metal rod i call a sword.]

Verdict: S-Rank [So long as the update is stable otherwise it's an A-Rank.]

Protip: Try the demo floating around the internet before you commit. The demo is rather old though with many new features have been implemented into the game. Still a long way before release though.

Early Access Hiccups? Plenty. Many features are experimented on all the time on this game. And as such it breaks easily during update. Does not stop you from enjoying it though.

EDIT 4/20/2015: I should really clarify something, i wont ssay this game has potential but it does [hypocrite] but the thing is about this game is that i got my enjoyment out of whatever update it already has so further progress is merely bonus at this point. So dont wait for the potential, just enjoy the now.